


For Lack of a Reset Button

by argle_fraster



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Author Is Allergic To Using Tags Correctly, Derek/being a creeper, Gen, Humor, Magic, Mayhem, Stiles/snark, this fandom needs more gen fic, what am i even writing i don't know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-15
Updated: 2012-09-15
Packaged: 2017-11-14 07:00:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/512582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/argle_fraster/pseuds/argle_fraster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles tries some warding and willpower to put a protective shield on Derek. It doesn't exactly go as planned. At all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For Lack of a Reset Button

**Author's Note:**

> I come home from a day full of teaching children under the age of 6 and apparently this is what I write. Thanks to Katie, who won't read this, for the idea of the spell's accidental effects. <3

"What exactly is this spell supposed to do again?"

"It's a _ward_ ," Stiles says. "It's for protection."

He cracks his knuckles and hopes that he looks confident. Truth be told, he's a little nervous, because when Deaton had him try the same ward on a plastic bottle and then shoot a BB gun at it, the bottle had exploded from the force of the impact. Deaton assured him that it was a lot different placing protection on _people_ , but Stiles doesn't think his sanity will hold if he watches somebody pop like the plastic had. He already has enough nightmares.

Derek, for his part, looks displeased at being the guinea pig. Were-pig. Wereguinea pig? Whatever. "Just get on with it," he growls.

"Your pleasant attitude always makes these things so much easier," Stiles says. He cracks his knuckles again, and waves his hands a few times. "Okay. Be quiet while I'm working this."

Deaton is a good teacher, and Stiles gets the whole theoretical principles of the matter. Wards and, yes, _spells_ , come from a direct influence of the creator's will. Stiles has a lot of will; he's got will in _spades_. After his victory with the mountain ash, he's pretty sure he'll get to level 80 in wizardry in no time.

He concentrates on Derek. He concentrates for a long time. In fact, it's such a long time, that by the time he's finished, Erica has gotten halfway through filing her nails and Isaac has pulled out a Sharpie from god knows where and started doodling on his arms.

"Are you finished?" Scott asks. He looks like he's still interested, because he's a good friend.

"Yes," Stiles tells him.

He thinks Derek frowns, but since that's his default expression, Stiles isn't sure. It could just be the way his face is. "I don't feel any different."

"Well, I didn't change your _molecular structure_ ," Stiles sighs.

Isaac shrugs, apparently more interested in drawing fake tattoos on himself than in Stiles' attempted warding practice. "Somebody try to kill him."

"I totally volunteer," Stiles says. He rubs his hands together. A baseball bat dipped in wolfsbane ought to do the trick, right? "Derek, just move over-"

Except that Derek has crumpled to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.

There's a very long moment where nobody moves.

Erica looks at Stiles. "Was that what you wanted to happen?" she asks. "You just killed him."

"I DIDN'T KILL HIM," Stiles says, calmly. He tip-toes in a bit to peer closer. Derek's chest is rising and falling at least, so he's alive. In some fashion.

"Good job with the force of will," Jackson snorts. Like his own force of will hadn't turned him into a giant were-lizard who went on killing rampages. He has _no_ room to talk.

Stiles just flips him the bird. "Will is very hard to control. Listen, I think he's just asleep. Maybe there's some strange backlash on the ward. Somebody who has werewolf strength help me get him over to the couch, will you?"

Erica and Jackson don't want to relinquish their seats on the only sofa (Derek needs to invest in a few IKEA trips), so they compromise and lay him on the only part of the room that has a rug.

\--

 _took him 45 min 2 wake up,_ Stiles' phone reads once he arrives home and rummages through the fridge trying to figure out what food is the least likely to give his dad heart disease.

 _Good,_ Stiles types back. It's hard to do one-handed. _Tell him it's just a minor glitch and that hopefully it will wear off soon._

There's a minute of nothing, and then Scott's reply says, _tell him urself. on his way ovr. pissed @ u._

"Wait," Stiles says to no one.

"I'd rather kill first, wait later," Derek says by the door, like the single creepiest person in existence who also knows how to pick complex window lock-latches. "What the hell, Stiles?"

Stiles holds his hands up, and realizes only belatedly that he's clutching a packet of turkey bacon in his left fingers. "I swear, I can explain. Deaton said the ward is for protection! But, I mean, I'm kind of a newbie, so I'm not sure what went wrong. Either way, you didn't blow up or anything, so how bad can it be?"

Derek looks murderous.

"Besides," Stiles continues, because he's lost all self-preservation instincts in the past half-year, "you've got terrible circles under your eyes. You really needed that cat-nap. Dog-nap. Wolf-nap. Whatever."

He still gets no response. He sighs; the turkey bacon will have to wait. He hopes his dad is okay with Jimmy John's again. "Listen, I'm sorry, okay? But it's all fine now, and I'll try the ward again after I get some more practice in. Maybe this time I'll keep the bottle from exploding before I try it on you."

"Maybe you shouldn't be messing with things you don't- did you say _exploding?_ "

"No worries, Derek, I swear I-"

And then Derek is on the floor again. Stiles swears he can hear the faint sound of snoring.

Stiles sighs. "Crap."

\--

Fortunately, since his dad is out on night shifts again, Stiles just leaves Derek in the middle of his living room floor and makes up some turkey bacon sandwiches with avocado and tomato so his dad doesn't die of high cholesterol in his late 50's. He keeps checking the clock, just so he can figure out how long it takes Derek to wake back up, and it's pretty much 45 minutes on the dot when the man starts to stir.

He's up and on his feet and _snarling_ in the time it takes most people to yawn. "Stiles, I swear to god, I'll rip your throat out if you don't figure out a way to reverse this immediately."

It's all Stiles can do to not fling fake bacon grease at him. "Derek, I'm sorry, I-!"

Derek hits his head on the table on the way down this time. Stiles grimaces a bit, and then rounds the table to poke at Derek's body with his toe, just to see if the asshole is faking it.

"Well," he says to the other man's unmoving form, "I think I might have figured out what the trigger is."

He kicks at Derek one more time since he can, and he's unsure when he'll get a chance like this again. He's probably going to die as soon as Derek wakes up and realizes that Stiles' ward has somehow been wrapped around people saying his _name_.

"Hey," Stiles says, brightly. He kneels down by Derek's elbow. "I wonder if this compounds if you are already asleep? We should try this. For _science_. This is an experiment, and there are a lot of variables, but hell, I don't think it matters. Derek, Derek, Derek."

\--

It compounds. _Exponentially._

Derek is out for about 14 hours. Stiles has to drag him up the stairs to his bedroom before his dad gets home to avoid the unpleasant line of questioning he knows would await him, which takes a _lot_ of time and is really uncomfortable. Stiles' arms hurt afterwards. He doesn't really have anywhere to put Derek, so he moves his desk sort of half-in, half-out of his closet and just shoves Derek between them, because he'll be damned if he's giving up his bed for this.

His dad doesn't ask why he's done impromptu rearranging when he finally gets home and knocks on Stiles' door to thank him for the reduced-fat dinner. He's the best dad _ever_.

Saying that Derek is pretty pissed when he wakes up is an understatement.

\--

"- _told_ you that you shouldn't be messing with things you can't control, you don't have the _control_ to-"

"Oh, don't make this about my control! Will is moody and unpredictable! You've been willing me to shut up for the past six _months_ and it hasn't worked yet, you can't even blame this on me!"

"-and now you are trying to find magic to alter this instead of just finding a way to _remove_ it, which is not what I want you to be doing-"

"The ward might still be viable! You don't know, we haven't had a chance to test it! I mean, I kicked you a little when you were out, but I didn't really have any malicious intent so it probably didn't register under what the ward was going to block against, and-"

"You aren't even researching! You are reading a _Dungeons and Dragons manual._ "

"Look, a lot of this stuff is _right_ , okay? Don't you dare judge me! There's a lot in here that falls solidly on the side of being feasible and possible, and sure, they've given stuff some pretty cheesy names, but the lore is right and the theoretical framework is sound enough to bounce numbers off of, and hey, give that _back_!"

"You are going to fix this _right. Now._ "

"You know, I don't really think you are in the position to talk considering all I have to do is say your name to give you instant narcolepsy."

"And whose fault is that, exactly?"

"So, guys?" Scott asks. He sounds kind of meek, which is probably fair considering the way Derek is snarling again as he whirls around to face him. Stiles gives Scott some credit for not immediately shrinking back, since Derek's got red albino alpha eyes going on again.

"Do you need something, McCall?" Derek growls.

"Um, well _I_ don't," Scott says. "But there's a lady outside and she looks kind of trampy and she smells like a rotting corpse, and I'm not an expert on this sort of thing, but I think it's possible she might be like a vampire or something."

Both Derek and Stiles freeze for a good ten seconds.

"Seriously?" Stiles asks, incredulously, turning to Derek. "Vampires? What else is real, the Tooth Fairy?"

"Stay out of this," Derek orders. "And the Tooth Fairy is a demon imp who steals children from their beds."

He marches to the door with full-on creeper broody face on, and Stiles wonders if there will be anything left of his childhood beliefs worth salvaging once this whole thing is over. Probably not. Little Red Riding Hood is _ruined_.

Scott loiters nervously by the door.

"Do you think I should go out there?" he asks, flapping his hands uselessly. Scott doesn't deal very well with pressure. Or math. Or the warm setting on his mom's oven.

"Nah," Stiles tells him. "He's totally got it covered."

There's a strange sort of indignant, shocked shout from outside, and the distinct sound of a body hitting the ground. Stiles and Scott stay where they are for a few seconds.

"She totally said his name, didn't she," Stiles deadpans.

"Yup," Scott says.

"Awesome," Stiles sighs.

\--

Not awesome is how vampires apparently have a mess of guild politics that would put Washington lobbyists to shame, and how Derek wakes up on the wrong side of the bed - or _yard_ as it would be, since neither Scott nor Stiles deemed it important enough to move him after the vamp accidentally knocked him out and then fled in terror - and decides that Stiles needs to immediately forgo any sleep in lieu of finding a cure for his sleeping spells.

"You know, I _can_ do this on my own," Stiles points out, as he's sitting at his computer clicking through mind-numbingly boring hypothetical accounts of the supernatural. "I generally work a lot better when there isn't somebody staring at me like some psycho child serial killer waiting to pounce."

"I don't trust you," Derek sniffs, and goes back to brooding silently in the corner of Stiles' room.

\--

A vampire shows up at the subway station the next day, and it takes both Boyd and Isaac to take it out. Stiles would be more disgusted over the way Buffy lied to him and the bodies don't just disappear, but he's busy being preoccupied trying to keep Derek from maiming him in impotent rage.

Ha. Now _that_ would be a hilarious spell misfire.

"Stiles," Derek hisses, like he can _sense_ Stiles wishing harm on the protruding parts of his body.

"Okay, I think I figured out a way to strip the ward off," Stiles tells him. The pack is standing over the vampire’s beheaded corpse like some bizarre, gross victory pow-wow. "I should be able to reverse it through another focus of will and it'll make you, like, a blank slate again."

"Should?" Scott, the ever helpful best friend, repeats.

Stiles elbows him hard and hopes he hits his spleen. He's not sure if werewolves can regrow internal organs. "It'll totally work."

"You said that about the last one," Erica points out.

"Just do it," Derek says, sounding kind of tired and weary. Like being forced to hang out with Stiles while he attempted to undo the mistake was the most horrible punishment ever. The dude lives in a _cellar_.

The vamp's blackish-blood is starting to pool and Stiles has to side-step around it. "Can we do this somewhere other than a supernatural creature massacre zone?"

"Beggars can't be choosers," Derek says.

Whatever. Stiles cracks his knuckles again. "Okay, just shut up and let me concentrate, then."

After ten or fifteen minutes, he's pretty sure it worked. He felt really solid there, particularly in the last minute. Deaton's training has been paying off.

"So it's gone?" Isaac asks, sounding dubious. "Just like that?"

"Well, we test it," Stiles says. He turns to Derek, who will probably claw Stiles' eyeballs out of their sockets and roast them over the burning vampire body if he screws this up again. "Derek."

Nothing happens. Even Derek looks pleased - well, as pleased as he ever looks, which is at least a step up from 'murderous'.

"Derek," Scott tries again, just to make sure. No narcolepsy; Derek remains fully upright and conscious.

"Oh, thank god," Stiles breathes. "Now to take care of this grody vampire, and-"

Derek hits the floor.

There's a very long moment where no one says anything.

"Huh," Scott says.

"You're really not on your game this week, are you?" Erica asks.

"I think it was the Dungeons and Dragons manual," Stiles admits. "I sort of got distracted during the research and started creating new characters for myself. I probably didn't budget my time very well."

At least Derek is far enough away from the dead vampire that the blood won't hit him. Leather is probably expensive to get dry-cleaned.


End file.
